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Dog - Ruthless
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24th
May 05 |
Strontium Dog -
Ruthless
Jonathan
Clements
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this book from Amazon.co.uk
What to Expect:
Johnny Alpha and the Strontium Dogs are back in action on the lawless frontiers
of space...
Review by Richmond
Clements
Jonathan Clements
is the writer of what are, without question, the best of the Big Finish audios:
the Strontium Dog adventures ‘Down to Earth’ and ‘Fire from
Heaven’, so I expected big things from this book.
And it starts
splendidly, with an interesting chapter describing a gunfight from the point of
view of the Gronk. I think I’m on safe ground by saying this has never been
done before, and Clements manages to do it very well, and along the way clues
us in on some of the various species of Gronk and their anatomy, in doing so setting
up a nice running joke.
Clements also
introduces a couple of his characters from the audio series. Sick Squid, useless
bounty hunter from Down to Earth is here, and is, in a continuity busting move,
the Betelgusian Blarg, from the final Dredd audio ‘Solo’.
It is a testament
to the skill of the actors in the audios, as well as Clements’ writing,
that while reading this, I could not help but hear the actors reading the lines.
The tale all these characters are involved in is, in places, a pretty meaty one.
Let’s put it this way, if it was a Wagner strip, it would probably be as
important to the Alpha mythos as ‘Portrait of a Mutant’ or ‘Traitor
to His Kind.’
For the most part
though, the story seems to meander around with not much to do, although it does
meander in an entertaining way. The bits that are supposed to be funny are, the
action is crisp and well written and there are even scenes of real pathos, where
Clements shows off his understanding of the characters. In fact, he is able to
balance the humorous and the serious sides of Strontium Dog as well as Wagner
can.
But on the whole,
the book feels uneven to me. And at one point a character appears in the middle
of a scene with no explanation of how they got there, which was distracting to
say the least, and had me flicking back over pages a few times to make sure I
didn’t miss something, and I don’t think I did. An unevenly paced
book I can handle, especially if it’s well written, and this one is, but
any sort of continuity error like the one mentioned about cannot do anything but
pull the reader back out of the book.
I said I expected
big things from this book; maybe I was building it up too much before reading
it?
So, with a couple
of reservations, recommended.
Buy
this book from Amazon.co.uk
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